Vatican Moving Jewish Institute to Rome

NICOLE WINFIELD

Published 7:00 pm, Thursday, January 23, 2003

Associated Press Writer

The Vatican said Thursday it was closing its center for Jewish studies in Jerusalem and moving it to Rome _ a move that has been criticized by some Jewish teachers as sending a negative signal about relations between Christians and Jews.

The Vatican said it was incorporating the Pontifical Ratisbonne Institute into its Gregorian University in Rome for financial and other reasons, including giving it greater visibility and improving academic quality so that its degrees are recognized elsewhere.

"Beyond serious academic concerns, severe, intractable and increasing financial problems of several years' standing necessitate a change of venue for what should be the Catholic Church's premier program in Jewish studies, where it can enjoy more appropriate quality and financial security," a statement published Thursday in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano said.

It added that in Rome, students would receive a "more integrated knowledge and understanding of the Jewish religion, culture and history" as well as enjoy greater intellectual collaboration between Jewish and Christian specialists.

The Ratisbonne has been a Christian center for Jewish studies in Jerusalem since the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meeting that modernized the Roman Catholic church. In 1998, the center was named a pontifical institute, bringing it under the direct control of the pope.

In 2001, the Vatican advised the faculty that it planned to temporarily close the Ratisbonne. At the time, the papal nuncio to Israel, Monsignor Pietro Sambi, stressed that the Ratisbonne was only closing temporarily and that the reason was financial _ not political or related to the surge in fighting between Israel and the Palestinians.

A group of Jewish teachers at the institute wrote to Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, saying they feared the closure would signal that the Church was abandoning Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported at that time. The letter said the closure would be viewed as adversely affecting relations between Jews and Christians.

"Even if those who made the decision did not intend this, the decision is bound to be perceived so by many in light of the current political pressure," the newspaper quoted the letter as saying.

During the Second Vatican Council, the Vatican issued "Nostra Aetate," Latin for "In Our Time," a document that sought to change relations between Christians and Jews.

In it, the Vatican deplored anti-Semitism and repudiated the "deicide" charge that blamed Jews as a people for Christ's crucifixion. The document also affirmed that Jesus, the apostles and most of his early followers were Jews, and that God had not revoked his covenant with Jews.

Pope John Paul II has made improving relations with Jews a priority of his papacy, and he visited the Holy Land in 2000. The Vatican and Israel opened diplomatic relations in 1993.

The statement published Thursday was signed by Grocholewski and Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the commission for religious relations with Judaism. It was dated Nov. 14. There was no reason given for the delay in the announcement.